In Stuffed, Zwierciadlowska-Rhymer taps into the long association between food and ceramics, her own well-honed knowledge of clay as an artistic medium, and craft’s non- threatening persona to get us to re-examine our relationship with food. Do you know where your food comes from? Do you know what you’re eating? And, to paraphrase chef and author Dan Barber, do you know what you’re eating’s eating?

With roots on a family farm in Southern Manitoba and exposure to community-based agricultural practices during time spent in Estonia and Poland, Zwierciadlowska-Rhymer is intimately acquainted with the cycles of food production and consumption. Themes of gluttony and excess run through all of her work, bringing to light the terrible reality of food in the industrialized Western World: that much of it will go to waste and what is eaten may make us sick. With its vivid imagery—doll heads (skulls), pills (worms), and (decaying) food—Stuffed can be read as memento mori, a visually rich reminder of the death and destruction inherent in our food system. With a lavish expenditure of time and extravagant attention to detail, Zwierciadlowska-Rhymer questions whether we can have our cake and eat it too.

This exhibition was made possible through the generous support of the Manitoba Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, and Winnipeg Arts Council.